Dynamical information fusion of heterogeneous sensors for 3D tracking using particle swarm optimization

This paper presents a new method for three dimensional object tracking by fusing information from stereo vision and stereo audio. From the audio data, directional information about an object is extracted by the Generalized Cross Correlation (GCC) and the object’s position in the video data is detected using the Continuously Adaptive Mean shift (CAMshift) method. The obtained localization estimates combined with confidence measurements are then fused to track an object utilizing Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). In our approach the particles move in the 3D space and iteratively evaluate their current position with regard to the localization estimates of the audio and video module and their confidences, which facilitates the direct determination of the object’s three dimensional position. This technique has low computational complexity and its tracking performance is independent of any kind of model, statistics, or assumptions, contrary to classical methods. The introduction of confidence measurements further increases the robustness and reliability of the entire tracking system and allows an adaptive and dynamical information fusion of heterogenous sensor information.     

Content Adaptive Mesh Representation of Images Using Binary Space Partitions

The interest in content adaptive mesh generation of images has been arising lately due to its wide area of applications in image processing. The major issue is to represent an image with a low number of pixels while preserving its content. These pixels or the nonuniform samples are then used to generate a mesh that approximates the corresponding image. This work presents a novel method based on binary space partitions in combination with three clustering schemes to approximate an image with a mesh. The algorithm has the ability to simultaneously reduce the number of pixels and generate the mesh approximation. The idea is to assume each triangle of the mesh as a plane. Consequently, it will be possible to reconstruct the inlying pixels with planar equations defined from the three nodes of each triangle. If a triangle's equation does not have the ability to reconstruct the pixels lying within up to a predefined error, it is split into two new triangles. Tested on several real images, the proposed method leads to reduced size meshes in a fast manner while retaining the visual quality of the reconstructed images. In addition, it is parallelizable due to the property of binary space partitions which facilitates its application in real-time scenarios.     

Standards: The MPEG Open Access Application Format

The open access application format is an integrated exchange format that improves the management and exchange of content. It can enable Web sites, archives, or search engines to be able to perform automatic processing, indexing, and presentation of content. This method also allows the interoperable exchange of content between providers or between users. For the scientific community, this capability would enhance the visibility and comparability of the content and thus improve the organization and exchange of scientific literature. This would be helpful not only for the scientific community, but also other communities and organizations whose goal is to efficiently distribute and exchange open content.     

Integrated optic polymeric components fabricated withmicrostructured strip-off covers

Fabrication of integrated optic polymeric components by moulding waveguide and fibre alignment grooves to a substrate in a one-step process, and subsequently filling the waveguide grooves by means of a microstructured strip-off cover which is later removed, is presented. The latest measurement results on waveguide attenuation, coupling losses owing to passive fibre-waveguide coupling and excess loss values are given     

Camera-pose estimation via projective Newton optimization on the manifold

Determining the pose of a moving camera is an important task in computer vision. In this paper, we derive a projective Newton algorithm on the manifold to refine the pose estimate of a camera. The main idea is to benefit from the fact that the 3-D rigid motion is described by the special Euclidean group, which is a Riemannian manifold. The latter is equipped with a tangent space defined by the corresponding Lie algebra. This enables us to compute the optimization direction, i.e., the gradient and the Hessian, at each iteration of the projective Newton scheme on the tangent space of the manifold. Then, the motion is updated by projecting back the variables on the manifold itself. We also derive another version of the algorithm that employs homeomorphic parameterization to the special Euclidean group. We test the algorithm on several simulated and real image data sets. Compared with the standard Newton minimization scheme, we are now able to obtain the full numerical formula of the Hessian with a 60% decrease in computational complexity. Compared with Levenberg-Marquardt, the results obtained are more accurate while having a rather similar complexity.     

Aggression and violence in children in different contexts

Starting with the hypothesis that children's aggressive and potentially violent behavior is the climax of escalating conflicts that cannot be expressed or showed in any other way, we analyse, in the following article, the conditions from which these behavior pattern arise. We have focused on the following areas; the individual, the family, the school and society, and we have tried to show how the development of children's aggressive behavior is determined by the problem constellations in these different contexts. Insecure and disorganised early bonding experiences and/or dysfunctional family relationship patterns combined with parental upbringing methods that support or condone aggressive behavior, can lead to children having fewer resources or social skills available than their peers in kindergarten and school. This may result in conflict and lack of social integration in these institutions.     

Automated 3D assembly of periodic alumina‐epoxy composite structures

Modular composites with a 3D periodic structure, consisting of a major brittle inorganic phase (building blocks) and a minor viscoelastic organic matrix, offer great potentials for improved fracture toughness and failure probability in polymer‐ceramic composites. Alumina building blocks with dimensions of 1500 μm were assembled by a novel placing system equipped with an automatic optical inspection (AOI) system. The AOI system coupled with shape recognition enables simultaneous dimensional characterization, tolerance sorting, and flexible placing of different shaped building blocks. 3D periodic structures with cubic, monoclinic, and triclinic unit cells were fabricated by high accuracy placing of cubic building blocks enabling near‐net shape manufacturing. The placing precision of the assembled structures was determined by μCT to have a maximum deviation of ±78 μm. The structures were afterward infiltrated with a soft epoxy resin to fabricate epoxy‐alumina composites. The brick‐and‐mortar like building block arrangements of the monoclinic and triclinic structures exhibited improved bending strength, fracture toughness, and failure probability compared to monolithic epoxy, due to crack deflection and pull‐out toughening mechanisms. A maximum bending strength of 35.1 ± 7.5 MPa, a work‐of‐fracture of 814.7 ± 255.1 J/m² and a calculated fracture toughness of 4.8 ± 0.8 MPa for the triclinic structures was achieved.